Midas w-2

by Russell Andrews

  Normal.

  Justin knew from his work as a cop that people spent much of their lives being frightened. Fear, too, was normal. But this: Suicide bombers. Destruction on a small, intimate scale. This was a different kind of fear. Fear that would come when anyone suspicious sat at a counter in a coffee shop. When starting a car. Or going to a club. Fear that would grip people in their homes, watching television, having dinner.

  That wasn’t normal.

  But it just might be the way of the world.

  Making the world a lot crazier and a more dangerous place.

  He opened the morning paper now. Glanced quickly at the front page of the Times. Five men with suspected links to terrorist cells had been arrested in New Jersey. They were being shipped to Guantanamo Bay-where Al Qaeda prisoners and other suspected terrorists were still being held-for questioning. Since the World Trade Center attack and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, over a hundred prisoners had been released from Guantanamo, almost all of them returned or deported to the Middle East. But there were still over five hundred men being detained. Some of them had been there for three years. Despite a Supreme Court ruling that proclaimed the practice unconstitutional, many of the detainees in the Guantanamo camp were still being denied any right to counsel. This was true of the five new suspects who’d just been arrested. The wife of one of the men said that her husband had been spirited away in the middle of the night, along with his brother. The woman was frantic. She said that no one in the family and none of their friends had any ties to any terrorists, they were completely innocent victims, just like the poor people killed in the restaurant bombing. The woman had hired a lawyer who’d already held a press conference. The lawyer, Shirley Greene, had announced that she was suing the government for the right to see the suspects. She said the case could take years before it made its way through the stacked court system, years before she might be able to speak to her clients. The president’s press secretary claimed that many of the detainees did not qualify for legal rights under the Supreme Court’s ruling. Those who did could retain the right to counsel. Those who didn’t would not. He said they had enough proof to label many of the prisoners “enemy combatants.” The press secretary also said that the president would soon be proposing a new law to Congress that would deal with the issue in a way that would satisfy the courts.

  The text of President Anderson’s speech was also reprinted in its entirety. It was basically an extended version of what Justin had just heard Stuller say on TV. We were winning the war. The evildoers would be punished. Goodness would rule. The American people must trust and support their leaders.

  Justin wondered if he was capable of trusting and supporting anyone he didn’t know. Lawyers, presidents, or innocent victims. He decided he wasn’t.

  Marjorie Leggett had probably watched Attorney General Stuller’s appearance or seen the president’s speech, which was why she’d be calling him again soon. Justin thought about his promise to Jimmy’s widow. He had no illusions that he could out-investigate the FBI. But he knew a few people, had a few contacts. Perhaps he could learn enough to tell Marjorie what she wanted to know: some semblance of the truth.

  He thought about how this would look on his “to-do” list: buy groceries, order new Loudon Wainwright CD, solve crime of the century.

  Justin looked at his watch, decided he’d better get going. He skimmed the rest of the paper, saw that the stock market had dropped 140 points, the main accounting firm connected to EGenco was being investigated for accounting irregularities, President Anderson’s approval ratings had gone up twelve percent since the bombing, and the Knicks had lost again. Then he drained his fourth cup of coffee and went to work.

  At the East End police station, Justin stood at his desk, fumbled with some papers for a few moments, cleared his throat and asked Gary, Mike, and Dennis, the three young officers on duty that morning, if they would mind listening to him for a minute. When they looked up, he hemmed and hawed and finally told them about his conversation with Mayor Krill. Told them that he was the new acting chief of police. His announcement got nods of approval and quiet murmurs of congratulations. It was all he expected. This was not a time to celebrate a promotion. Jimmy Leggett’s loss was still an open wound. It would be a while before it began to heal. But, in the meantime, his authority was now established, and that was all he wanted to accomplish.

  A few minutes later, Mike and Dennis went off on their appointed rounds-Mike to pound the Main Street pavement and ward off parking violators; Dennis to cruise the side streets and look for speeders and kids playing their boom boxes too loud. But Gary lingered in the doorway after they had left. When Justin raised his eyes in a questioning look, Gary said, “I’m glad for you. It’s a good thing. If you need any help, anything at all. .”

  “Thanks,” Justin said. “I was already counting on that.”

  Gary now looked toward Jimmy’s office. The door was half open.

  “You gonna move in there?”

  “I don’t think so,” Justin said. “Not yet.”

  “Wouldn’t feel right, would it?”

  “No.”

  “Well, it’ll feel right sometime.”

  “I know it will.”

  Gary smiled, touched his forehead with two fingers, meant to be a salute, and headed outside. As soon as he was gone, Justin went to work on his computer.

  The first thing Justin did was go onto Google and type in “FAA.” A list of possible sites came up and the first one he clicked on was “Aviation Standards National Field Office.” At the top of the screen it gave a post office box in Oklahoma City, and a phone number. Underneath that was, “Where can I learn about an aircraft accident or obtain results of an accident investigation?” That’s what he clicked on, but it wasn’t much help. The instructions said to provide the exact date, location of accident, and either the name of the airline or the aircraft identification number to Public Inquiry Section AD 46. Justin typed in the precise information, waited for a response.

  There was no record of any private plane crash involving the tail number NOV 6909 Juliet.

  After playing around with a few more sites, and going down a few more false paths, he returned to the initial listing of different sites and realized he’d been signing on to peripheral organizations rather than the main FAA Web page. In typical government fashion, they couldn’t even lead someone to the right agency with any ease. He finally hit on what he needed: the FAA link to “Aircraft Registration.” He clicked on that, checked the tail number again as he prepared to type it in, but then the following information came up on his screen:

  GENERAL INFORMATION REGISTRATION INFORMATION

  NOTICE: Due to increased security requirements, access to the public documents room by the general public has been suspended.

  Aircraft registration information may be found at the interactive inquiry site. Copies of aircraft records may be ordered by letter, fax, telephone, or online at http://diy.dot.gov.

  He clicked on “Telephone” and got the number for the Public Document Room in Oklahoma City. He decided that a little human contact couldn’t hurt.

  The phone rang five times before an answering machine clicked on. Listening to the message, Justin swore under his breath-he’d forgotten about the time difference. The office wasn’t open yet. He almost hung up, but at the last second decided to leave word. He gave his name-gave it as Chief of Police Justin Westwood; every little bit helps, he decided-and asked if someone could give him a call, that he was in the middle of an investigation and needed some assistance.

  Within seconds of his hanging up, the phone rang. He was impressed: they got in early in Oklahoma City. Except the call wasn’t from Oklahoma. It was from the Southampton police station, perhaps seven miles away. The call was about the Dr Pepper can he’d sent over. They had not been able to access any records that matched fingerprints to the ones on the can.

  “How wide was the database?” Justin asked.

  “We went pretty ext
ensive. Started statewide, went national, and used the Feebies.”

  Justin sighed. “Thanks for trying,” he said. “I appreciate it.”

  “You’re taking it better than I thought you would,” the Southampton cop said. “A guy with your rep. It pissed me off, I gotta tell you.”

  “What can you do? If there are no records, there are no records.”

  “I didn’t say the records don’t exist. I just said we were blocked from getting them.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  The officer on the other end of the phone sighed as if talking to an idiot. “When we ran the prints through our friends in the FBI we were told we couldn’t access that information.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Don’t know. Maybe it means whoever you’re looking for is out of our league.”

  The cop hung up before Justin could ask any more questions. And Justin had plenty more questions, although he doubted the Southampton Police Department could help with any of them.

  Information not available.

  Public access suspended.

  Access denied.

  Here was question number one: Who was this guy?

  And question number two: What the hell was going on?

  Now that he thought about it, maybe there was a third question. Fear was in the air. Fear made people do strange things. When you boiled it right down, fear was the cause of almost all murders: fear of betrayal, fear of being left alone, fear of poverty. So if this mysterious pilot had indeed been murdered, the answer to the third question might be the most important of them all:

  The people who’d murdered him-what exactly were they afraid of?

  6

  Wanda Chinkle was the assistant director of the FBI responsible for the New England bureau. She’d been in charge for a little over two years now. She’d gone up there to work when Justin Westwood was still on the Providence police force, and they’d joined together on a case. She still felt a little guilty that she’d been unable to protect his family in the mob attack that ultimately took their lives, which is why, when their paths had crossed a year ago, when he’d gotten caught up in the middle of the hunt to stop Douglas Kransten and his Aphrodite experiment, she’d helped Justin out. That helping hand had greatly jeopardized her standing with her bosses. But Justin had managed to repay the favor and dig her out of the jam. She liked Justin. He could be charming as hell. He could also be cold as steel and just as hard. She hadn’t known him all that well before his daughter was killed and she sometimes wondered if he’d been any softer before that. Something told her that wasn’t the case. Wanda’s experience was that people didn’t really change. The older they got-the more life they experienced-they just tapped into what was already there. What was just waiting for an excuse to come out.

  As soon as she heard Justin’s voice on the phone, Wanda knew he wanted something. That was okay. Very few people talked to Wanda unless they wanted something. It didn’t bother her. She was tough enough and smart enough to handle most things. Even Justin Westwood.

  “It’s good to hear from you, Jay. How are things there? You’re not far from the bombing, are you? At the restaurant.”

  “Maybe five or six miles away.”

  “Jesus. You okay?”

  “I’m fine. I was nowhere near it. But my boss wasn’t so lucky. He was there.”

  “Was he. .?”

  “Yeah. He was.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Me too. But that doesn’t have anything to do with why I’m calling. I need a favor.”

  “Well, we’re a little busy right now, considering what’s going on. Full antiterrorist mode. Did you see Stuller’s speech?”

  “I saw it. And I appreciate what you’re going through. But this won’t take much time.”

  “What kind of trouble are you in now?”

  “No trouble. I swear. I just have a question.”

  “I know your questions. They usually lead to trouble.”

  “Wanda, I’m just trying to get to the bottom of something. Something that shouldn’t be that complicated. But I keep hitting a wall.”

  “All right, let’s hear it.”

  He told her about the plane crash. She’d heard some of the details; a memo had been e-mailed with an update saying that any connection to the nearby bombing had been ruled out. Justin didn’t respond to that, just explained to her about Martin Heffernan’s behavior at the crash site. He told her about being denied access to the fingerprint records. He left out the part about the exhaust manifold that had been tampered with. Better to keep some things in reserve.

  “That is definitely strange,” she said. “But, you know, the fingerprint thing-there might simply be nothing there. Some kind of snafu. Maybe because of the proximity to Harper’s. It could have been a precautionary restriction.”

  “That’s probably right, but. .”

  “But you’re curious.”

  “I’m definitely curious.” When she stayed silent on the other end, Justin said, “Funny that none of your guys came to talk to me about the crash, don’t you think?”

  “They’ve got other things on their minds, Jay.”

  “Still, you’d think they’d want to check this out.”

  “Sounds like the FAA already checked it out. They got word to us about the pilot error, end of story. No need to put in the extra hours if we already know it’s pointless. It doesn’t seem like a big deal.” She thought for a moment, then said, “Of course, with you just about everything’s a big deal, isn’t it?”

  “I just like to be thorough,” he said. “If it wasn’t for me, what would you do for aggravation?”

  She sighed. “All right. Get me a set of the prints. I can’t see any reason not to check ’em out.”

  “I sent them already. They’re probably in your computer.”

  “Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you, Jay?” She was certain he was smiling smugly on the other end of the phone line.

  “I’m just sure who my friends are, Wanda, that’s all.” She didn’t say anything. So he said, “Call me when you’ve got something, okay?” And when she still didn’t say anything, he figured it was okay to hang up.

  Forty-five minutes after Justin spoke to Wanda Chinkle, the call came in from Oklahoma City.

  The woman who called was named Cherry Flynn. He asked her to repeat it, but she just said, “You heard it right. Cherry, like the little red fruit.”

  “Thanks for calling back. . um. . Cherry.”

  “My pleasure. What can I do for you?”

  “Well, I went online looking for some information,” Justin told her. “But I couldn’t log into the public records.”

  “That’s right. In the last month or so, we had to eliminate access for the general public. Security reasons.”

  “Then maybe you should change the name.”

  “What?”

  “You shouldn’t call them public records if the public isn’t allowed to see them anymore.”

  “Oh, I see what you mean.”

  “So, listen, Cherry. Here’s what I need. I’m investigating a murder case. .”

  “Oh my.”

  “Right. I’ve got the tail number of a plane that I think belongs to the victim. I need to know how to trace the number back to the owner.”

  “Well, that’s what we do.”

  “Good. So if I just give you the number. .”

  “Well, I’ll need some sort of authorization. Otherwise we might just as well let anyone still go online. If you see what I mean.”

  “Okay, fair enough,” Justin said. “What kind of authorization?”

  “Well, you said you’re from the police?”

  “That’s right. I’m the chief of police for East End Harbor.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Long Island. New York. Right near where the restaurant was bombed the other day.”

  “Oh my. Does this have anything to do with that?”

  For the briefest of moments,
Justin thought about lying, thought it might help his cause. Then he realized the possible ramifications, so he quickly said, “No. It’s something completely separate.”

  “Oh. Well. . why don’t you fax me something on your official police stationery. And include your badge number. I’ll get verification and approval, and then I can call you back with the information.”

  “Do you know approximately how long all that might take?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t. It’ll take as long as it takes.”

  “Right. That was always one of my favorite axioms.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Would you like the fax number?”

  He said that he would and then he copied it down. He told her he’d get the request to her momentarily. She said she’d respond as soon as she could. Justin hung up and realized he’d now spent the morning accomplishing absolutely nothing thus far. He’d been stymied using official police channels, the Internet, and the phone. He’d talked to one suspicious friend who was reluctantly trying to help him with something that probably wouldn’t pan out, and one near-idiot woman who might never call him back. He hoped the afternoon would be slightly more productive.